


Opposites Attract

by Flutiebear



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, College, Cute, F/M, Fluff, adorable freshman year hijinx, magic as science
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-19
Updated: 2013-08-19
Packaged: 2017-12-24 00:55:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/933205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flutiebear/pseuds/Flutiebear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>First day of class and Carver already resents his 8 AM physics section. That is, until the cute girl with all those tattoos sits next to him.  (Please, you knew it was only a matter of time before I wrote a college AU.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dipoles

**Author's Note:**

  * For [misslonelyhearts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/misslonelyhearts/gifts).



> From this conversation I had with missl0nelyhearts a long time ago: 
> 
> Me: "Magnets are dipoles: as in, they always come in pairs, a “north” & a “south”. There’s no net magnetic “charge”, so to speak. Magnetic monopoles (a north without a south) have been theorized, but never found. #fuckyeahphysics"
> 
> MLH: Work this into a fic. i double-dog dare you, Flutie-The-Science-Bear.
> 
> Okay, well, you asked for it. 
> 
> Also, true story: My freshman year 8 AM chemistry professor was named Dr. Paine.

Grumbling, scowling, clutching his travel mug like a shield, Carver slides into a seat in the last row of the giant lecture hall. He feels like shit. He looks like shit. He smells like –well, best not to think too hard about how he smells. He overslept this morning, and had to sprint out here without even taking a shower. Whoever decided 8 AM was a great time to do an “Intro to Physics” section is a soulless fucking ass-munch Carver wants to punch in the face.

Not that it would have been better at any other time of day, of course. Carver hates physics. Really hates it. And not just because his dad is a famous physicist, with his own basic cable kids’ show, _Dr. Mal: Science Rogue_ ; and not just because both his sisters are born naturals at the geek stuff, and the three of them have always had their own little physics club with force diagrams and potato guns and TI-82s and shit. No. That has nothing to do with it.

He’s just _bad_ at science, that’s all. It’s not in his blood like it is in theirs. He’d rather be doing something, making something—not stuck inside playing with magnets or scribbling down equations all day.   

 _“Not everybody has to be a scientist,”_ Dad used to say, “ _but you should at least understand science, so you can appreciate how the world works.”_

Carver appreciates it just fine. Fast cars, cheap beer, pretty girls. Science can fuck off.

A youngish man with bright red hair stands at the front podium and, without preamble, begins to rattle off syllabus information. Carver looks at his class schedule again. Paine. The professor’s name is Dr. Paine. Go fucking _figure._

He draws a defiantly loud sip from his coffee mug. Fucking physics. Fucking Paine. Fucking 8 AM. Fucking plastic chairs, making it hard to fall asleep in class. But he’ll find a way. Oh yes, he will. They can make him take physics, they can even schedule it at 8 AM, but he’ll be damned if he’s actually going to stay _awake_ for any of this shit. It’s not like they’re going to teach him anything new, anyway.

He’s just pulled out the fold-out desk and curled his arms into the perfect approximation of a pillow when the lecture hall door opens. The most beautiful girl he’s ever seen swoops into the room like a gust of wind, all black hair and braids and tattoos, and, in what Carver can only assume is absolute proof the Maker hasn’t abandoned his children entirely, slides into the plastic chair next to him.

“Excuse me,” she drawls in a thick, gumbo-fed Southern accent. “I’m in the right class, right? Physics 301?”

Carver swallows and nods dumbly. Suddenly, he is wide awake. “That’s it. Physics with Dr. Paine.”

She breathes a loud sigh of relief. Then giggles. Fuck him, she actually _giggles._

“Hope the name’s not a promise,” she says with a smirk.

“Hope not,” he offers lamely. His heart pounds against his ribcage like a desperate prisoner, though that might be all the coffee he drank.

She squints down at the podium, where the professor has begun droning about office hours.

“I can’t hear anything from up here,” she says, gathering her books back up. “I think I’m gonna go a little further down.”

“No,” he says, more loudly than he intends. A girl four rows down turns and glares at him. He scowls back at her. “No, you should stay here. Better view.”

She regards him curiously. For the briefest moment, her gaze flickers to his biceps, then back up to his face. “I guess you’re right,” she says.

He tries not to sigh too obviously when she leans back into her plastic seat and pulls out a notebook decorated with pirate ships and halla horns. He can see tattoos coiling up and down her hands, her elbows and forearms—long scrolling lines, like vines. 

“Nice tats,” he says.

She smiles. “Thanks,” she whispers. “18th birthday present from my parents.”

“You have a cool family,” Carver sighs.

“Shouldn’t we be paying attention to the lecture?” she says, but she doesn’t sound annoyed at all; the expression on her lips, it’s halfway between a smirk and a pout. Carver desperately wants to kiss it. 

“Nah.” He waves dismissively toward the podium. “It’s all just first day shit anyway.” He sticks out his hand. “I’m Carver.”

She looks down at the proffered palm and smiles, her green eyes glittering. “Merrill,” she says, sliding her hand into his with the same deftness in which she slid into the chair.

Her hand is slim, soft. Carver has the urge to hold onto it forever.

“So, Carver,” and his belly flipflops when she says his name, “if we shouldn’t pay attention to the lecture, what should we do instead?”

 _Go back to my room_ , he almost says. _Or maybe a nearby stairwell._

“You could always sleep,” he suggests.

“But these chairs are so uncomfortable,” she says, shifting in her seat. She tucks her legs under her, sitting cross-legged on the plastic. Her black leggings are so sheer they’re almost see-through. “It’d be like sleeping in an airport.”

“We could ditch class,” he offers. “Go hit up the coffee shop.”

She snickers. “Go to a coffee shop to sleep? Isn’t that the opposite reason why you go to a coffee shop?”

“No, I meant—“ He looks down at his desk, flushing. “Nevermind.”

When he looks back up at her, she’s frowning.  “Did I miss something?” she says.

“No, no. Not at all.”

Then he notices her feet.

“You’re not wearing shoes,” he says, and hates the awestruck sound of his voice.

She shrugs. “You’re not wearing sleeves.”

“Got me there.” He grins, and he hears her breath catch in her throat. She swallows it away, the little hollow bobbing. _Fuck._ He wants nothing more right now than to touch it with his thumbs, to test the feel of it as it bobs up and down.

She blinks once, twice, rapidly, and squints down at the board. “So what’s Paine going on about now?” 

He tears his eyes away from her perfect throat. “Dipoles, I think.”

“Dipoles.” She frowns. “What the hell is a dipole?” 

“Like magnets?” She hasn’t stopped frowning, so he keeps going. “Magnets always come in pairs. North poles and south poles, you know? You don’t get one without the other. Like twins.”

“Or lovers,” she adds brightly.

“Um,” he can feel his cheeks grow hot, “I guess? There’s no net magnetic charge, so to speak—“ He groans inwardly for saying that, that’s something his Father would say, or worse, _Marian_ , “not like with electric charges, where you can have a plus charge or a minus charge. Monopoles, like, you know, a north without a south, they’ve been theorized. But nobody’s ever found them.”

“You’re really smart, aren’t you,” she says in a hushed voice, like she’s divulging a secret.

He flushes and fumbles with his coffee mug. “Nah. Just grew up with a bunch of science geeks, that’s all.”

“I’m a science geek too,” she says. “Biology. But I never heard all that.”

“Stick with me,” he half-laughs, holding onto his mug for dear life, “and I’ll bore you right into passing this class.”

“I highly doubt that,” she says, and then, impossibly, she blushes. “Um. Not the passing part. Th-the boring part. You know what I mean. Uh.”

His stomach flip-flops again, and he feels himself drawn to her, physically pulled toward her chair, a force irresistible, inevitable.

“Yeah,” he says. “I know what you mean.”


	2. Stockroom Woes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merrill comes to visit Carver at his part-time job, and adorably awkward flirting results.

Unlike Marian, who’d scored a full-ride scholarship to U of Kirkwall, _of course,_ Carver has had to bust his ass to pay for school. He keeps a couple part-time jobs: one slinging burgers at Meeran’s, another slinging lasers and spectrometers in the physics department stock room. They don’t usually give those jobs to kids outside the department, but in his interview Carver had apparently impressed the supervisor by knowing the difference between a lathe and a table saw, as if the distinction were some ancient Mayan secret, forever lost to the ages. Of course, to most of these spoiled rich kids, it probably is. But with a famous physicist for a father, Carver had seen his fair share of power tools and soldering irons, and he probably knows more about lab equipment than most of the professors. Those boneheads wouldn’t know their ass from an optical mount. No wonder Athenril hired him.

Of course it had nothing to do, nothing at all, with that one time Marian walked into Meeran’s, wrinkled her nose at Carver’s paper hat, and proceeded to blather on (and on, and on) about how for her baby brother’s sake, she _might_ be able to pull a few strings with her department head.

Stupid Marian. Always helping, always having to be the center of the damn universe. Maker save him from his older sister’s help.

Still, getting paid to sit on your ass and shelve a few potentiometers now and then isn’t exactly rocket science, and it beats scalding hot fry oil and getting screamed at in Spanish. Plus, Athenril doesn’t seem to mind (or even know) when Carver’s friends visit him. Not that many do, of course. But at least one swings by the stockroom now and then, and in Carver’s mind, she’s all that counts.

“Everything here is cold hard stone,” sighs Merrill, tapping her feet against the tiles. She leans her butt against a nearby work bench. “I wish I’d worn shoes with soles now.”

“You should’ve, you know,” says Carver, refusing to be distracted by butts, no matter how perky or cute they may appear. “They catch you in here like that, I could get fired.”

“They won’t catch me.” Merrill gets a wicked gleam in her eye. “I’ll just hide behind the saw.”

“Lathe.”

“Whatever,” she says with a shrug that makes Carver feel like he missed a joke somewhere. She turns and runs a hand along on the tabletop behind her, idly tracing the whorls in the wood with her fingertips. Carver watches in silence, eyes fixed on the ink along her wrists, which disappear up her sleeve like a promise Carver isn’t sure he’ll never be able to collect on. “So how did you learn lathing?”

He frowns. “Lathing?”

She nods her head to the ancient behemoth in the corner of the stockroom. “Those things you do with the saw. Lathe,” she corrects herself with a lopsided smile that goes straight to Carver’s belly. “Looks tricky. Was it hard to learn?”

A hot flush creeps from Carver’s neck to the tips of his ears. He didn’t realize Merrill had ever seen him actually _working._ It means she had to have come by the stockroom when he was busy and hadn’t known she was there. And the idea of her spying on him, watching him machine filter mounts or stabilizers or whatever, maybe even singing along to himself as he worked… Maker’s balls, it’s a good thing Marian isn’t here. He’s sure he’s as red as a radish right now.

“It takes a lot of practice, I guess,” he says eventually.

“Well, you seem good at it,” she says with a hesitant smile. Carver isn’t sure because of the tats, but he thinks her cheeks might be a little pink too. “I bet one day you’ll be the best lather at Kirkwall.”

Carver has no idea how to answer that. In fact, he’s pretty sure he’s forgotten the English language entirely. “Merrill,” he says quietly.

“I said something wrong again, didn’t I?” She scrunches her face up and looks quickly down at her toes. “Maybe I’ll just stop talking.”

Carver’s about to grunt out something, anything, because he knows a good opening when he hears it, and he might be many things but stupid isn’t one of them, when he hears a rich, smoky voice practically purr behind him, “ _Interesting.”_

He wheels about to see Isabela, her elbows and her generous bosom leaning across the open stockroom window. Carver’s gaze is instantly drawn down to the shadows revealed by her tight, white shirt, which he knows she knows he’s looking at, because she catches his eye and winks at him before leaning over a little further. “Not interrupting anything, am I?” 

“Not at all,” Merrill squeaks. “We weren’t doing anything.”

The sound of her voice – too high and maybe even a little guilty – shakes Carver from the spell Izzy’s magnificent prow has cast upon him. He swallows.  

But if Isabela is here, then that means—

“Hello, Car-car,” says Marian, slinking out from behind her girlfriend. Her hand lingers possessively on Izzy’s hips, and she casts Carver a withering look, like she knows exactly where his eyes had been. “How’s the desk job? Drop any lasers on your foot today?” 

Carver feels his face grow hot again. “Shove off,” he snaps. “That was one time.”

Marian turns to Izzy in mock affront. “See how he talks to his older sister?” 

Izzy nods gravely. “These kids today.”

Carver sighs and folds his arms in what he hopes is an appropriately bored and superior fashion. Maybe if he just gives Marian whatever she’s looking for, she’ll leave him alone. Of course, it didn’t ever work when they were kids, but then again, there’s always a time to start. “What do you want?”

“We’ve come to collect the kitten,” says Izzy with an evil, lopsided grin. “Unless you’re not done petting her yet.”

Merrill makes a noise somewhere between a choke and a pterodactyl screech. “Coming, I’m coming,” she says hastily, grabbing her backpack, which is covered in doodles of hallas. With her hand on the stockroom door, she turns back to Carver. “See you tonight?” she murmurs. “My place, 9?”

Oh crap.

In his peripheral vision, Carver sees Marian and Isabela trade glances. Great. Just great. 

Carver nods dumbly at Merrill, without really seeing her. “Yep. See you then.”

“Why _kitten_ ,” purrs Isabela as Merrill walks through the stockroom door. Izzy pushes off of the window, Carver clearly forgotten, smiling a smile that would be right at home on the mouth of a Great White. “You didn’t tell us you were having a _party.”_

“I’m not,” Merrill says uneasily. She waves at Carver, a small furtive gesture, as the three of them start walking down the hall together. Marian’s eyes linger on Merrill thoughtfully. “He’s just helping me with some physics homework.” 

“I’m a physics major,” says Marian. “I could help you.”

“Oh, uh, well,” stammers Merrill. She doesn’t notice Marian shoot Carver a quick glance, as they turn the corner and out of earshot. She’s grinning, ear to ear.

Balls. Carver knows that smile well.

Maker save him from his older sister’s help.


End file.
